Lady Astor

[HENRY]

What was Lady Astor's majority over her Labour opponent when she became the first woman MP?

[SRAYN1]

I'm still trying to find the figure. However, Lady Astor was not, strictly speaking, the first woman MP. She was the first woman to take her seat in the Commons, in 1919. Constance, Countess Markiewicz, was the first woman to be elected. She fought in the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin when she led 120 Republican soldiers, for which act she was jailed and sentenced to death. After the amnesty, in 1918 she was elected to Westminster but did not take her seat in protest.